Human Rights Week! Article #1

Human Rights Day / Week - a celebration we should make last all year...

The U.N. says it so well...

"   Human Rights Day is observed every year on 10 December. It commemorates the day on which, in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 1950, the Assembly passed resolution 423 (V), inviting all States and interested organizations to observe 10 December of each year as Human Rights Day.

This year, Human Rights Day calls on everyone to stand up for someone's rights! Disrespect for basic human rights continues to be wide-spread in all parts of the globe. Extremist movements subject people to horrific violence. Messages of intolerance and hatred prey on our fears. Humane values are under attack.

We must reaffirm our common humanity. Wherever we are, we can make a real difference. In the street, in school, at work, in public transport; in the voting booth, on social media.

The time for this is now. “We the peoples” can take a stand for rights. And together, we can take a stand for more humanity.   "

U.N Human Rights Day.

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Celebrate Coelenterates Week!

Anemone... not anenome! ... apparently i wasn't fully awake this morning as i sketched this up... but i'm not fixing that pic right now!!! i'm just leaving it there to irritate ALL of us! ;)  )

Coming SOON! The Coelenterate CONTROVERSY!

QuestX’s Calendar of Science, Nature, and Other ...

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Quest^X’s Calendar of Science, Nature, and Other 

Important Days/Weeks/Months of Note

The interactive calendar ^ (which can also be found through our web site on the Quest^X home page) let's you see what is special about *today* or look up other days/ weeks/ months for science, nature, and otter celebrations!  ; )


A few days of Note coming up:
April 29 ~ National Arbor Day 
April 24-30 ~ World Immunization Week
May 6 ~ Space Day
May 14 ~ World Migratory Bird Day
May 22 ~ International Day for BioDiversity 
May 23 ~ World Thinking Day!

Water Cycle #3 (complete!) > National Water Week (April 10- 16)

Basics of

ACTIVE PARTS Evaporation Transpiration / Evapotranspiration RunOff Condensation Sublimation Seepage Precipitation (rain, snow, fog, etc.) Infiltration Plant UpTake Recharge Flow

PHYSICAL PARTS Sun (solar energy) Clouds Lake River Cloud Plants/ Trees Spring Ground Water Atmosphere Water Table

It's been a busy week, so, unfortunately that's all for National Water Week... but next week is Earth Day! (and the earth *is* ~70% water, so......   ; )   ).

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Water Cycle #2 (hints!) > National Water Week! (April 10- 16)

 As promised, here are a few hints to give you a starting place for filling in the water cycle coloring page.

 Try to look up some of the terms and put them in the diagram! On the last day of National Water Week, Saturday, I will add the definitions in case you can't find them.

Some of the terms used in describing the water cycle:

ACTIVE PARTS Evaporation Transpiration Evapotranspiration RunOff Condensation Sublimation Seepage Precipitation Infiltration Plant UpTake Recharge Flow

PHYSICAL PARTS Sun Clouds Lake River Cloud Plants/ Trees Spring GroundWater Atmosphere

The blank coloring page:

And a colored page:

And last, for today, fill in the blanks!

I haven't given you all of the blanks, first try to fill in some on your own!

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The Confluence: Dabbling in the Waters of Leonardo da Vinci

"Water is the driving force in nature."

~Leonardo da Vinci~

Leonardo daVinci, Notes on the Movement/Physics of Water.

 Confluence: (n) a flowing together or meeting of two or more things at a common point.

Leonardo daVinci is confluence personified: an artist, scientist, inventor, engineer, musician, and architect with a constant sense of questing.

Leonardo was fascinated with water, wanting to comprehend it's nature, properties, how it shaped nature, and how to control and use it. Water inspired his art/music, science, sense of wonder, and his urge to invent and engineer.



He often compared the flow of water to the flow of blood, rivers to veins, and used these workings to understand both systems better.

daVinci, Studies of Water Moving, 1508-09.

 

Leonardo studied and sketched water throughout his life, one of his early sketches shows his study of the Arno River (Italy), including the movement of water. Other sketches and notes show his scientific approach to understanding water.

Leonardo daVinci, 1473, Study of a Tuscan Landscape, Arno River.

Da Vinci mapped water as it impacted people:

(click maps for larger images)

 and landscapes:















Many of his inventions and engineering studies dealt with water:



















 and how we could potentially *capture* it.

My personal favorite?
How could it not be

da Vinci's underwater breathing device?

 Do you have a favorite?

Leonardo daVinci also explored expressing music through *capturing* water, here is a peek at the NOVUS build of the water organ designed daVinci (Chuck Zimmerman's YouTube):

A version  of the water organ that you can hear *playing*, built by Joaquin Saura following daVinci's sketches, plans and discussion found in the Madrid Codex II at the National Library in Madrid (Joaquin Saura's YouTube).

Leonardo da Vinci also used water to help capture some of his more symbolic and fantastical musings:

Leonardo's Allegory of Bull, Wolf, and Eagle.

Leonardo's sketch Neptune, 1504-05

 Da Vinci's association with water is something that I think many of us feel, a connection.
I'll leave you with a some final thoughts from da Vinci, 2 quotes:

" Water is sometimes sharp and sometimes strong, sometimes acid and sometimes bitter, 

sometimes sweet and sometimes thick or thin, sometimes it is seen bringing hurt or pestilence, sometime health-giving, sometimes poisonous. It suffers change into as many natures as are the different places through which it passes. And as the mirror changes with the colour of its subject, 

so it alters with the nature of the place, becoming noisome, laxative, astringent, sulfurous, salty, incarnadined, mournful, raging, angry, red, yellow, green, black, blue, greasy, fat or slim. 

Sometimes it starts a conflagration, sometimes it extinguishes one; is warm and is cold, 

carries away or sets down, hollows out or builds up, tears or establishes, fills or empties, 

raises itself or burrows down, speeds or is still; is the cause at times of life or death, 

or increase or privation, nourishes at times and at others does the contrary; at times has a tang, 

at times is without savor, sometimes submerging the valleys with great floods. 

In time and with water, everything changes. "

~ ~ ~

" The body of the earth is of the nature of a fish ...  

because it draws water as its breath instead of air. "

Leonardo da Vinci- 15 April, 1452 to 2 May 1519.

Water Cycle #1 (fill in the gaps) > National Water Week! (April 10- 16)

This week is (U.S.) National Water Week.
A week to focus on water topics at our national level: clean water access, water recycling, wise water use, natural water flows, agricultural access, recreation, flooding, drought...

Want to know more about water, and how it impacts us? This week we'll explore some of those topics.

Here's a blank template... how do you think the water cycle works?

(we'll post a completed version later this week ;) )

or, if you prefer:

Join us to celebrate World Water Week August 27- September 2 (2016).

Happy Dark Sky Week

In case you haven’t heard by now, this week is National Dark Sky Week. Celebrated every April around the time of the new moon, this is a week when people all over the world turn out the lights at night to try to reduce light pollution.

What exactly is light pollution? This is the excess, unnatural light caused by human society that makes the night sky brighter than it should be. Light pollution is annoying for astronomers or anyone else trying to enjoy the awe-inspiring beauty of the stars and nearby planets at night through a telescope.  But beyond that, it also wastes energy, disrupts sleeping patterns, negatively affects nocturnal wildlife, and even disrupts the growth pattern of some plants and trees. So for the rest of the week, do your best to turn down the lights at night, and turn off what you’re not using. Spread the word! And while you’re at it, go outside and appreciate the amazingness that is the Night Sky. For more information, check out this page on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Dark-Sky_Week

In honor of Dark Sky Week, let me share with you an astronomical coincidence. Did you know that the Sun and the Moon are almost exactly the same size? … Well, actually they aren’t. But at some point in life you’ve probably noticed that they appear to be the same size, at least when viewed from the surface of the earth. This fact is most apparent during a total solar eclipse, when the Sun, Moon and Earth align in such a way that the sun is almost perfectly blocked out by the profile of the Moon. 

 Above: Photograph of a total solar eclipse, captured in 1999. (en.wikipedia.org)

It turns out that this is actually one of the more interesting coincidences in astronomy (at least as far as earthlings are concerned). As we all know, the Sun is the largest body in our solar system, and is much, much larger than the Moon. How much larger? Well, the diameter of the Moon is about 3,475 kilometers (or about 2,160 miles, for those of you still using the imperial system). For comparison, the diameter of the Sun is a whopping 1.39 million kilometers (or about 865,000 miles). That means the Sun is almost exactly 400 times wider than the Moon. So why do they look the same size, you ask? Well, it’s simple geometry! The Moon is about 370,000 kilometers (~230,000 miles) away from the Earth, while on average the Sun is about 150 million kilometers (~93 million miles) away from the Earth. This means that the Sun also happens to be roughly 400 times farther away from the Earth than the Moon is.

The end result? When viewed from Earth, the Sun and Moon appear to be the same size. If not for this happy coincidence, we would not be able to enjoy the magic of a solar eclipse, which every so often gives us a dark sky in the middle of the day.